03/11/2014

It's spring already and the birds are nesting everywhere. There's a very aggressive mocking bird in the neighborhood that has it in for our cats. There's also the neighbor's cat Floyd, who hangs out on our back steps with his nose to the crack under the door singing love songs to my lady cats, who hate him. The cats want to go out and enjoy the afternoon when I come home, but they're driven back in the house almost immediately by the birds and the neighbor cat. He sits on the back steps staring and singing, so they go out the front door. The birds are waiting for them outside and dive bomb them.

I thought I'd go out and enjoy the day too, and maybe play bodyguard. I'm writing this on the patio with two mockingbirds squawking threats at Floyd, who's hiding under a chair. He isn't stupid, just clueless about women. Lelu ran onto the patio to escape the birds. But then she saw Floyd, hiss hiss.

Then when the wind changes direction it brings us the fragrance of the seven puppies who live in back of us. There should be some industrial use for their effluvia. You could light your home with it but you'd have to sit out in the dark because the smell is so intense. The neighbors clean up after them, but there's only so much you can do with that many little dogs.

The birds have gone off to rob some liquor stores, and now Floyd is rubbing his face on my foot, which is scandalizing Lelu. I'm cheating on her with her enemy. This won't keep her from demanding food when we go back inside.

Here's poor innocent victim Lelu resting in between bird attacks. You can almost see Floyd's little black head sticking up towards the upper right. He's on the porch waiting for love, or food or something.

Nature is brutal, but it doesn't leave time for philosophy. I have to go break up another cat fight.

02/17/2014

Here, this is better. It posted upside down from my itouch. No, were weren't hanging upside down by our knees taking pictures. We might have when we were younger.

We went up Highway 2 into the San Gabriel Mountains yesterday for a field trip. The weather was sunny and in the 60's. We didn't need jackets. There's no snow until you get deep into canyons on the north side of the mountains. There are small patches in the shadiest spots. The ski places up there have to be hurting for business. There's one that's been making snow on one little slope. It's barely snowed up there for the last two winters.

The Station fire devastated the place 6 years ago. We were happy to see that plants are coming back. There are baby manzanitas and little pines popping up all over. There are new oaks growing underneath the dead burnt oaks. They look like bushes. I was trying to see if they were sprouting from the roots, or if they were growing from acorns but I couldn't get close enough to see. We saw a lot of acorns on the ground. It's recovering, but it will take a long time for it to grow back the way it was. It's sad, then you drive through a place that the fire skipped over and things are lush in patches. Those patches will have to re seed a lot of acres of nothing.

We kept driving until we came to a favorite spot. It's further back where the fire didn't reach. These huge old cedars grow there. It's smells wonderful. I saw a badger. I didn't know what he was, too big to be a squirrel, too small to be a bear. He was going somewhere on business.

02/09/2014

01/26/2014

It's that post holiday slump. We're fatter, lazier, used to doing what we like, then we have to go back to work. It's not fair, and having to wake up before we're ready is a horrble injustice. An extra day off isn't any help. We've lived life the way it's meant to be lived. Anything less is intolerable.

My husband has been sick for a week. It's not his fault, he feels terrible. I thought I was catching it too. Then I noticed I felt better when I was outside the house. Allergies. Don't you hate them?

The only thing of passing interest today was the Kardashian clone I saw at the store today. She was middle aged and large. She was wearing a tight animal print dress on a body that didn't suit it. She was wearing those monstrous high heels with spikes that make me think of the "cruel shoes" in the old Steve Martin routine. She was swooning with her own self importance. Her more down to earth daughter was pushing the cart behind her and looked like she was quietly seething. The odd thing is she didn't look as much like a Kardashian as a lot of the clones I see around town. It was something to do with her intent, her arrogance, and the horrible shoes.

I've been thinking a lot about the stories we tell ourselves and how our inner dialog helps create our reality, or at least the way we react to things. Every once in awhile I run into someone who's telling herself the story of her life as a plot from an unreality show. Maybe it's the high drama level, or the pettiness of the plot line that gives it away. It will start out as a he said she said kind of tale, then it slowly mutates into something vaguely unreal. They're telling the story as if their life was the plot of one of those shows. It's pointless to judge other people's fantasies, but it makes you wonder what we're doing to ourselves. I think we need better stories. We also need kinder shoes.

01/09/2014

We had dew this morning which means there was humidity over night. I don't know if there was enough to drip off the plants and water anything, but maybe our skin will feel better for a little while. Living with 11% or less humidity for weeks takes it out of you. I was joking with Tom that we'll have to hold really still and wait for water to condense on our bodies like those insects in the Atacama Desert in Chile. I saw them on a nature show. They sit on the sand dunes and when fog comes in it condenses on their bodies and they can get water to drink. Pretty funny to think of doing it here, and pretty hopeless since this winter has been so dry that having dew is an event. We talked about ways that we used to re purpose gray water and hope it doesn't come to that.

Here's a link to an article about the Atacama Desert. They average 1/2 inch of rain a year. We'll be catching up soon if things don't improve. Atacama Desert Wikipedia